Moree Revisited Pt4 (final)
Story and photos by Dan Flett
Preface by Robert Brand: I received this email from an interested party, nothing to do with OTC, but was kind enough to send me some great photos of the Moree site that re recently visited. I will spread the photos out over a few postings, but here is his email. Thanks so much Dan.
Hi Robert, My name is Dan Flett, and I discovered your site, http://exotc.org indirectly via www.honeysucklecreek.net - my new favourite website. The only vaguely tangental personal connection I might have with OTC is that my wife used to work for Telstra and has a few Telstra and ex-Telstra friends – some of whom may have worked for OTC in the past.
[Repeated from previous parts of this story] I’ve been spending a bit of time reading the articles on www.honeysucklecreek.net and have taken an interest in the old tracking station sites and the photos of their current condition. I noticed that there wasn’t any photos of the current condition of OTC Earth Station Moree, despite there being a lovely scan of an OTC publication from 1969 with the Moree Dish on the cover. I’m currently on holiday – I with my family have just completed a road-trip from Melbourne to Brisbane, and we stopped two nights ago in Moree. I did a Google search for the Earth Station and found the current owner of the site and was able to contact him and set up a visit. I was amazed that while the building is now being used for an engineering business, there is still a bit of the original signage and equipment in place (such as the original generator control panel). I was given an escorted tour of the tower – the owner seems proud of the building’s OTC heritage and the important role it played, and is happy for people with an interest to have a look around (within limits I would imagine)
Outside view of tower
Moree Wide view of antenna tower and main building
Closer view of antenna tower
Closer again view of antenna tower
Close view of OTC logo on tower – opposite side to antenna pad
Wide shot of front office and lawn along front fence
Wide shot of front office and lawn along front fence
Close view of OTC logo on tower – opposite side to antenna pad
That is the last in this view of Moree today. We thank Dan Flett for contacting us an providing these images. It was most timely as I have been concerned at the lack of information on these pages about Moree. It seems that there is significant record on the Internet about Ceduna and Carnarvon, but the dismantling of Moree before the Internet was in full swing seems to have left its history untold.
